Overview of the OS Symbian Belle
In late August, we announced a new version of the Symbian operating system, Symbian Belle. Soon it will appear as a pre-installed system with the new Nokia 700 smartphone. The new OS is very different from previous versions of Symbian.
Belle surpasses previous releases of Symbian OS not by the number of innovations, but by their quality. Also in this OS there are many improvements in previously existing capabilities. The user interface received mutable widgets and a drop-down menu that displays various notifications and controls connections; the number of desktops increased to four (and will soon increase to six); lock screen has become more informative. Of course, this is not the whole list of changes in Symbian Belle - you can familiarize yourself with all the most important features under Habrakat.
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Many standard widgets like clock, mail, music player, favorite contacts, calendar, have been rewritten. Now they can be in five different sizes. This gives users the ability to arrange widgets in random order, creating the main screens to your taste.
To save users from a number of simple but routine actions, Symbian Belle introduced a new type of widget - “Switch”. With it, from the main screen, you can, for example, quickly turn on or off Bluetooth, change the profile.
In addition to widgets, you can add favorite contacts to the main screen for quick access or sending messages, as well as icons for individual applications for instant access to the most needed software.
In Symbian Belle, the number of main screens has increased to four. After some time, an update will be released, expanding the number of main screens to six.
At the bottom of the Symbian Belle main screen, three virtual buttons are displayed to open the main menu, the numeric keypad for dialing (or selecting a contact) and the settings for the main screen. This solution, in theory, eliminates the use of physical buttons, as was done on the Nokia N9.
For each screen, you can set a separate background image.
In addition, the Belle main screen now has a drop-down menu that appears when you slide down from the notification area. It shows notifications of missed calls and unread messages, you can select a quiet mode, as well as manage your connection settings and WiFi and Bluetooth connections. Yes, someone will say that it was already in Android and iOS, but the story of this decision begins with Maemo. ;)
The main menu has undergone very few changes, but they can change the pattern of using a Symbian ^ 3 phone quite a bit. The main menu in Belle has a one-level navigation, that is, applications go in one list. In order not to get lost in it, there is a separate button at the bottom for launching a search by application. Of course, no one bothers you to sort the applications into folders and put them in the right order - this opportunity has remained in place. In Symbian Belle there is a function to remove programs through the menu, and not through the application manager.
The background for the main menu is now not a black background, but the shaded wallpaper of the main screen. By the way, it is from the main menu that you can duplicate applications to the main screen - we have already talked a bit about this opportunity.
Changing the interface Symbian Belle touched including a number of standard programs. Well, let's list them.
At the bottom of the screen, instead of the “Functions”, “Take a Snapshot” and “Exit” buttons, there are buttons for controlling the flash, for selecting scenes, for advanced camera settings, and for the “Back” and “Menu” buttons. On the left side of the screen there is a slider that appears automatically to control the digital zoom, and on the right side there is a button for taking a photo or video and selecting a mode (photo / video). In fact, the new camera interface is an improved version of the camera interface in Symbian Anna, in which the left and right sides of the screen are almost devoid of bulky buttons, and all the most used buttons are removed from the settings menu to the outside.
The browser has undergone a number of small changes designed to improve the convenience of web surfing. So, the address bar now automatically disappears when the user starts flipping through a web page. At the bottom of the screen there are now buttons for opening bookmarks and open tabs - before they were hidden in the menu. All other settings are still in this menu, so it is not much different from the browser menu in Symbian Anna.
Of the less obvious things that have received an update in the Symbian Belle browser, we can note better support for HTML5.
Functionally, the player has not changed, but visually has been significantly reworked. The cover of the current album has become larger and is now displayed on the entire top of the screen. The rewind bar was also made larger, so in Symbian Belle it is much easier to rewind the track.
In addition to the control buttons located under the cover and information about the artist, you can switch tracks by simply swiping the cover left and right. The bottom menu now shows the buttons for mixing and repeating tracks.
Early next year, a package of business applications from Microsoft will be available for Symbian Belle. It will include:
1) Lync - a collective text, voice and video messenger for organizing meetings on the go;
2) Document Connection - an application that provides access to files on SharePoint sites;
3) OneNote - an application for drawing up text and photo notes, synchronizing with SkyDrive;
4) PowerPoint Broadcaster - an application for viewing on a mobile device presentations stored on a PC.
Also next year, Microsoft will release native Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications for Symbian devices. Thus, it will be the first OS, different from Windows Phone, including the Microsoft office suite.
The new Nokia 700 smartphone already has an NFC chip built in, all subsequent Symbian ^ 3 smartphones will also be equipped with an NFC chip. Of course, Symbian Belle introduced support for NFC technology (about which we recently wrote a big post ) at the system level. In Symbian Belle, you can transfer photos from one device to another, connect with various accessories and check in different places with one touch of NFC-enabled devices.
We tried to list the main features of Symbian Belle, but to describe all the minor changes within the framework of the review is simply not possible. As before, the new release of the Symbian ^ 3 OS introduces a number of improvements related to both interface solutions and the overall stability and performance of the device. Separately, perhaps, it is worth noting the fact that, despite the addition of a whole range of new functionality, the power consumption of devices on the Belle did not increase: the phone’s working time with active use can be three or four days.
The Symbian Belle operating system will soon be available to Nokia N8, E7, C6-01, C7 and X7 owners.
If you have one of the above phones, do you plan to upgrade it to Symbian Belle? Based on the review, how do you like the new operating system?
Belle surpasses previous releases of Symbian OS not by the number of innovations, but by their quality. Also in this OS there are many improvements in previously existing capabilities. The user interface received mutable widgets and a drop-down menu that displays various notifications and controls connections; the number of desktops increased to four (and will soon increase to six); lock screen has become more informative. Of course, this is not the whole list of changes in Symbian Belle - you can familiarize yourself with all the most important features under Habrakat.
')
New customizable widgets
Many standard widgets like clock, mail, music player, favorite contacts, calendar, have been rewritten. Now they can be in five different sizes. This gives users the ability to arrange widgets in random order, creating the main screens to your taste.
To save users from a number of simple but routine actions, Symbian Belle introduced a new type of widget - “Switch”. With it, from the main screen, you can, for example, quickly turn on or off Bluetooth, change the profile.
In addition to widgets, you can add favorite contacts to the main screen for quick access or sending messages, as well as icons for individual applications for instant access to the most needed software.
Main screen
In Symbian Belle, the number of main screens has increased to four. After some time, an update will be released, expanding the number of main screens to six.
At the bottom of the Symbian Belle main screen, three virtual buttons are displayed to open the main menu, the numeric keypad for dialing (or selecting a contact) and the settings for the main screen. This solution, in theory, eliminates the use of physical buttons, as was done on the Nokia N9.For each screen, you can set a separate background image.
In addition, the Belle main screen now has a drop-down menu that appears when you slide down from the notification area. It shows notifications of missed calls and unread messages, you can select a quiet mode, as well as manage your connection settings and WiFi and Bluetooth connections. Yes, someone will say that it was already in Android and iOS, but the story of this decision begins with Maemo. ;)
Main menu
The main menu has undergone very few changes, but they can change the pattern of using a Symbian ^ 3 phone quite a bit. The main menu in Belle has a one-level navigation, that is, applications go in one list. In order not to get lost in it, there is a separate button at the bottom for launching a search by application. Of course, no one bothers you to sort the applications into folders and put them in the right order - this opportunity has remained in place. In Symbian Belle there is a function to remove programs through the menu, and not through the application manager.
The background for the main menu is now not a black background, but the shaded wallpaper of the main screen. By the way, it is from the main menu that you can duplicate applications to the main screen - we have already talked a bit about this opportunity.
Updated Applications
Changing the interface Symbian Belle touched including a number of standard programs. Well, let's list them.
Camera
At the bottom of the screen, instead of the “Functions”, “Take a Snapshot” and “Exit” buttons, there are buttons for controlling the flash, for selecting scenes, for advanced camera settings, and for the “Back” and “Menu” buttons. On the left side of the screen there is a slider that appears automatically to control the digital zoom, and on the right side there is a button for taking a photo or video and selecting a mode (photo / video). In fact, the new camera interface is an improved version of the camera interface in Symbian Anna, in which the left and right sides of the screen are almost devoid of bulky buttons, and all the most used buttons are removed from the settings menu to the outside.
Browser
The browser has undergone a number of small changes designed to improve the convenience of web surfing. So, the address bar now automatically disappears when the user starts flipping through a web page. At the bottom of the screen there are now buttons for opening bookmarks and open tabs - before they were hidden in the menu. All other settings are still in this menu, so it is not much different from the browser menu in Symbian Anna.
Of the less obvious things that have received an update in the Symbian Belle browser, we can note better support for HTML5.
Music player
Functionally, the player has not changed, but visually has been significantly reworked. The cover of the current album has become larger and is now displayed on the entire top of the screen. The rewind bar was also made larger, so in Symbian Belle it is much easier to rewind the track.
In addition to the control buttons located under the cover and information about the artist, you can switch tracks by simply swiping the cover left and right. The bottom menu now shows the buttons for mixing and repeating tracks.
Microsoft programs
Early next year, a package of business applications from Microsoft will be available for Symbian Belle. It will include:
1) Lync - a collective text, voice and video messenger for organizing meetings on the go;
2) Document Connection - an application that provides access to files on SharePoint sites;
3) OneNote - an application for drawing up text and photo notes, synchronizing with SkyDrive;
4) PowerPoint Broadcaster - an application for viewing on a mobile device presentations stored on a PC.
Also next year, Microsoft will release native Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications for Symbian devices. Thus, it will be the first OS, different from Windows Phone, including the Microsoft office suite.
NFC support
The new Nokia 700 smartphone already has an NFC chip built in, all subsequent Symbian ^ 3 smartphones will also be equipped with an NFC chip. Of course, Symbian Belle introduced support for NFC technology (about which we recently wrote a big post ) at the system level. In Symbian Belle, you can transfer photos from one device to another, connect with various accessories and check in different places with one touch of NFC-enabled devices.
Conclusion
We tried to list the main features of Symbian Belle, but to describe all the minor changes within the framework of the review is simply not possible. As before, the new release of the Symbian ^ 3 OS introduces a number of improvements related to both interface solutions and the overall stability and performance of the device. Separately, perhaps, it is worth noting the fact that, despite the addition of a whole range of new functionality, the power consumption of devices on the Belle did not increase: the phone’s working time with active use can be three or four days.
The Symbian Belle operating system will soon be available to Nokia N8, E7, C6-01, C7 and X7 owners.
If you have one of the above phones, do you plan to upgrade it to Symbian Belle? Based on the review, how do you like the new operating system?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/131068/
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